On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery
at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln
brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the
Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War. Lincoln’s address
lasted just two or three minutes.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We
are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate
a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—
we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what
we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863.

Eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
gave his first national radio address, or “fireside chat” (above), broadcast directly from the White House during the Great
Depression.  He began that address simply: “I want to talk for a
few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.”
He went on to explain his recent decision to close the nation’s
banks in order to stop a surge in mass withdrawals by panicked investor’s worried about possible bank failures. The banks would
be reopening the next day.

Roosevelt thanked the public for their “fortitude and good temper
during what he called the “banking holiday.”

On October 5, 1947, President Harry Truman (1884-1972)  made
the first-ever televised presidential address from the White House,
asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans.

At the time of Truman’s food-conservation speech, Europe was
still recovering from World War II and suffering from famine. He
worried that if the U.S. didn’t provide food aid, his administration’s Marshall Plan for European economic recovery would fall apart. 

Truman asked farmers and distillers to reduce grain use and
requested that the public voluntarily forgo meat on Tuesdays,
eggs and poultry on Thursdays and save a slice of bread each
day. The food program was short-lived, as ultimately the Marshall
Plan succeeded in helping to spur economic revitalization and
growth in Europe.

SANDY KOZEL

On January 4, 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon
Baines Johnson lays out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed
to achieve his plan for a Great Society. On the heels of John F. Kennedy’s
tragic death, Americans had elected Johnson, his vice president, to the
presidency by the largest popular vote in the nation’s history. Johnson
used this mandate to push for improvements he believed would better
Americans’ quality of life.

Following Johnson’s lead, Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the
areas of civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965
State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid,
Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on
Natural Beauty. Johnson also signed the National Foundation of the Arts
and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the National Endowment for
the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.